Sheryll Pang is no stranger to hardship, but it’s adversity that has driven her to succeed.
Pang, 25 years old, says that at 16 her abusive stepfather kicked her out of their house. And three years later, she became a single mother.
“I was told I was stupid and that I’d never amount to anything,” she says. “I really didn’t think I would be able to go to college. I did not believe I had the mental capacity.>>

As a child, Donna Masini read and wrote poetry but never thought becoming a writer was in the cards. But now she has published two books of poems: That Kind of Danger, which won the Barnard Women Poet’s Prize, and Turning to Fiction.>>

Elizabeth Butson knows what really matters and it’s not money. “It’s all about making a difference in the lives of others,” says the philanthropist. Butson, a former Philip Morris International advertising executive, reporter for Time/Life magazine and local newspaper publisher, spent her early life making opportunities for herself. Now she creates them for others. >>

When Sherry Cleary was in “nursery school,” years ago, a one-sentence progress report came home. It said: “Sherry hates worms.” She still does. Nevertheless, within minutes Cleary can devise a prekindergarten curriculum using worms to teach arithmetic, storytelling, basic science and more.>>

When Isabella Rossellini was a girl growing up in Italy in the mid-1960s, her father bought her a copy of King Solomon’s Ring, a famous book about animal behavior by Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian zoologist who later won a Nobel Prize and may have been the world’s first animal whisperer.>>

Chancellor James B. Milliken is putting forth his ambitious vision for a more global, more digital, more STEM-focused City University of New York that will build on CUNY’s rich history, raised academic standards and other strengths to develop a tech-savvy 21st-century workforce.>>

The University’s renowned faculty members continually win professional-achievement awards from prestigious organizations as well as research grants from government agencies, farsighted foundations and leading corporations. Pictured are just a few of the recent honorees. Brief summaries of many ongoing research projects start here and continue inside.>>

In a strong show of support for immigrant students, CUNY officials announced a new partnership with TheDream.US Foundation, a new multimillion-dollar National Scholarship Fund that provides scholarships for undocumented immigrant students. Over the next decade, TheDream.US aims to help more than 2,000 highly motivated, low-income students to graduate with career-ready degrees.
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Ava Chin is an associate professor at the College of Staten Island, where she teaches creative nonfiction, memoir and journalism. But between classes it is not unusual to find her foraging the campus grounds for delicacies that grow in the wild.>>

SUSAN CRILE is a painter and printmaker of considerable renown. Her work — ranging from the political and incensed to the lyrical — has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of such prominent institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and, in Washington, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.>>

THIS IS THE UNLIKELY STORY of a one-time taxi driver, his circuitous college career, and the “cognitive map” that led him to a Nobel Prize. John O’Keefe was a child of working-class immigrants, born in Harlem and raised in the South Bronx. He struggled in high school, enrolled in a private college, transferred to City College, drove a cab at night and took six years to graduate.>>

With a $100 million investment from Mayor Bill de Blasio and the arrival of artisanal businesses like Jacques Torres Chocolate, Sunset Park seems poised for a revival. But the transformation of this eclectic Brooklyn neighborhood won’t be easy, says Queens College urban studies professor Tarry Hum. In her new book, Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, Hum traces historical struggles and new challenges including job development, environmental issues, an underground sex industry, gentrification and forging alliances between Chinese and Latino immigrant communities.>>

In Urban Appetites: Food and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York, Cindy Lobel, an assistant history professor at Lehman College, serves up a richly detailed account of the origins of the food industry in a century that brought enormous changes to the city’s cultural, social and political life. Deftly written, with fine illustrations, Lobel’s cultural history takes us on a fascinating tour of the foodways, describing the farms and markets that supplied the kitchens of the burgeoning city. Lobel also explains how the explosion of restaurants — from posh dining rooms to sixpenny eating houses — helped establish New York’s roots as the world’s greatest culinary center.>>

This book is utterly pedestrian. Let me explain. Back when Billy Helmreich was a boy growing up on the Upper West Side, his father would entertain him with a pastime called “Last Stop.” The two would hop on the subway, get off at one of the system’s far-flung terminuses, and explore the neighborhood on foot. They eventually worked down to some third-to-last stops.>>

I heartily commend Governor Andrew Cuomo’s exemplary “Enough is Enough” campaign to strengthen the reporting and investigation of sexual assaults at New York’s colleges, which The City University of New York has been actively addressing with new comprehensive policies as well as system-wide staff and student training and other measures. >>

In his March report to the Board of Trustees, Chancellor James B. Milliken remarked on ASAP’s national recognition, new support for STEM programs, and the need to remain competitive in retaining talented faculty and staff. Chancellor Milliken reiterated that his top priority remains the resolution of collective bargaining agreements to recognize the commitment of faculty and staff. The Chancellor said: “If CUNY is to attract and retain top talent, we need an agreement with appropriate salary and benefits.” Chancellor Milliken added that the University’s dedicated adjunct faculty deserves recognition and long overdue raises for providing “a critical component to our ability to offer a high quality education to our students.”
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A University-wide study has reported on ways to streamline course credit transfers among community and senior colleges. Too many transfer students find their college credits rejected by their receiving colleges, each of which has discretion to shape its own general education courses and credit requirements, according to the report of a working group convened by Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost Lexa Logue. The report found that transfer students "confront a variety of uncertainties and risks, including the risk of having some credits rejected, which can slow their progress toward their degrees and increase their costs."...
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The University played a significant role in the U.S. Census Bureau's massive effort to complete its 2010 New York City count. The University provided facilities in the five boroughs, 17 sites in all, to help the Census Bureau recruit and train students, staff, and community members for its biggest operation: going door-to-door to count households that failed to respond to mailed forms. Patricia A. Valle, an assistant regional census manager, stated that without the University's help "we would not have been able to test and train the thousands of people who came forward to be part of this tremendous undertaking."...
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A new book by Harold Schechter, professor of American literature and culture at Queens College, recounts a sensational 1840s murder and trial that included an O.J. Simpson-like media circus and the jousting of well-matched legal teams for the prosecution and defense. Killer Colt: Murder, Disgrace, and the Making of an American Legend has a cast that includes the victim, a busy local printer named Samuel Adams, the accused killer, John Colt -- older brother of Sam Colt, inventor of the famous six-shooter -- New York Mayor Robert Hunter Morris, 90 witnesses, and an enthralled public. Was Colt guilty or not guilty? Read the book to find out....
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The University has joined forces with IBM and New York City's Department of Education in a pilot e-textbook initiative at Stuyvesant High School aimed at better equipping students to succeed in higher education and then in a global workforce. In the trial program a group of 102 ninth graders will test Kindle DX e-book readers to download text and supplemental materials for geometry, biology and social studies classes. The partnership "takes aim at holding down costs and will offer students tools to better prepare them for college-level work," says Allan H. Dobrin, CUNY executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer.
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International filmmakers brought "The World Through Women's Eyes" into focus at the Graduate School of Journalism in April with a global documentary festival launched to recognize the importance of such films in covering world events at a time of declining international news coverage. "It was all that we envisioned at the start and more ... not just filmmakers talking about films," says film board founder and chairman Lonnie Isabel. CUNY's journalism school has also started a documentary film class and Isabel expects that student film projects and discussions will be part of the next documentary festival.
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The University's website -- www.cuny.edu -- has increased traffic by more than 50 percent to a record 1.64 million unique visitors per month since its 5.0 redesign one year ago. It is now the second most searched site on Google in the New York metropolitan area. In March 2011, the site produced a record 6.6 million page "hits" or pageviews. Among the most visited pages were the homepage, the portal log, admissions related pages, and employment and job search pages. In addition to providing vital services to faculty and students, the site, which is managed by the Office of University Relations, is also becoming a favorite for lifelong learners.
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Jonathan "Johnny" Clegg -- the renowned South African musician, human rights activist and anthropologist -- received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from The CUNY School of Law on April 5. Best known for songs such as "Asimbonanga" ("We have not seen him") -- a tribute to Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Victoria Mxenge, Neill Aggett and other anti-apartheid heroes and martyrs -- Clegg and his bands Juluka (the first mixed-race band in South Africa, formed with the Zulu musician Sipho Mchunu,) and Savuka defied apartheid laws by performing for racially mixed audiences, resulting in numerous arrests for Clegg and band members.
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Liliete Lopez, a graduate of Hostos Community College now attending Queens College, has been honored as a "rising star" by the Queens Courier. Because she is blind, Lopez wasn't permitted to go to public school until she moved to America from Nicaragua at 13. But she's flourished in this country. Since 2009, she's been the treasurer of the CUNY Coalition for Students With Disabilities, which represents 9,000 students. Last fall, she was elected vice chair of disabled student affairs for the University Student Senate.
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At a recent conference at City College, Queensborough Community College students Aradhna Persaud and Ashley Grant gave the new CUNYfirst system a test drive. Persaud logged into her student center, checked her adviser-approved course plan, searched for classes and put two into her shopping cart. It was easy, she says and while it was just a demonstration, using CUNYfirst (fully integrated resources and services tool) will eventually be the normal routine for students, faculty and staff. It will replace a jumble of inefficient, campus-based computer systems -- some dating to the 1970s. When it's fully deployed, every University information system will seamlessly mesh with every other.
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For eight years, Greg Donaldson, a communications and theatre arts professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, followed the life of Kevin Davis, a former prisoner who spent seven years behind bars. Out of that came the book Zebratown: The True Story of a Black Ex-Con and a White Single Mother in Small-Town America. The title refers to a neighborhood in Elmira, one of New York's many upstate cities noted for rusting factories and a big prison where "mixed-race couples and their children abound."
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